If you are looking for some armchair travel, two of my go-to books are a pair about my ancestral homeland: A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands by Lorne Rubenstein and Playing Through by Rube’s longtime Globe & Mail colleague Curtis Gillespie. Rubenstein spends a summer with his wife Nell in this Scottish links paradise, taking the reader along with him on his wondrous journey; meanwhile, Gillespie recaps a year that he spent with his family in Gullane, Scotland. Finally, if fiction is more your cup of tea, there are plenty of writers who enjoy spinning a yarn that relates to that four-letter word we all love to hate. No one has done a better job of crafting narratives about golf into a fictitious tale than long-time Golf Digest contributor Dan Jenkins. One of his best is Dead Solid Perfect: a rollicking tale of one man’s quest to win the biggest tournament of his career, while coming to terms with all of the women in his life – past and present. The result is a funny and well-written page-turner. Anything I missed? Do you have a favourite you’ve read to share? Please e-mail me: david@mcphersoncommunications.com. I’m always looking for another good golf book to add to my leaning tower. Golf By David McPherson Another classic, which falls into the category of participatory journalism, is The Bogey Man, by George Plimpton. The writer spent one month (which probably felt like a year for the weekend warrior) on the PGA Tour; the result: this hilarious behind-the-scenes book about his adventures travelling and trying to play on the pro circuit. Looking for help with your game this winter, rather than reading about some of golf ’s legends? I suggest the following pair of classics of the genre: Ben Hogan’s Five Lessonsand Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime in Golf (the bestselling golf instruction book of all time). Sixty years after they were first published, Hogan’s teachings are still the bible for any aspiring golfer to learn the fundamentals of a good, solid golf swing. Meanwhile, Penick’s Little Red Book, written by a man whom Sports Illustrated called the “Socrates of the golf world,” as the title suggests, is a slim volume that you can keep in your golf bag or on the coffee table, to absorb little bits of wisdom any time you need some golfing inspiration. CSANews | WINTER 2017 | 47
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